Tennessee Williams' South
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DVD details
Brand: WBPrimary Contributor: Tennessee Williams
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown)
Format: Full Screen
Running Time: 80 minutes
Published: 2006
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Warner Brothers
DVD Reviews of Tennessee Williams' South
DVD Review: Genial views of a Genius.
Summary: 5 Stars
An 80-minute appreciation of Tennessee Williams in the form of an interview juxtaposed with scenes of biographical import from Williams' plays. This film was produced in 1973 when Williams was 62 years old. The interviews occur over a one-year period set in New Orleans and Key West. The viewer also sees outdoor settings and photographs that evoke Williams' childhood in small towns of Mississippi. There are pictures of his grandparents (described as the "gentlest" people he has ever known), his parents, his sister, and numerous photos of Williams as a child and at various ages throughout his life. There are several interior and exterior views of Williams' actual dwelling places as a writer. The film focuses most on the "world" of Williams' Memory, which is where Williams feels he truly "lives." His memories derive from his life spent in the South.
Tennessee comes across as a genial and perhaps unintentionally charming person. He laughs often. It's a pleasure to listen to his Southern accent. He's careful and thoughtful before answering the interviewer's questions. Most moving for me were his frequent readings from his poetry and plays. By the time the film was ending, I'd concluded that most of his works and his thought processes were Poetry.
Williams is an excellent reader of his works. His poems are more exquisite than I've ever guessed, having seen only a few movies based on some of his more outstanding plays.
It was interesting to hear Williams speak of the origins of Southern idioms. Also to learn of his penchant for Chekhov and how he felt that Chekhov's own particular Russian "world" was very comparable to the world of Williams' world of the American South. I found that a most unexpected comparison.
In a phrase from one of his poems, Williams speaks of himself as telling "Truth disguised as illusion."
When asked why he thinks so many people identify with his characters and thus with him, he expresses surprise. He says he can't imagine that many people do identify with his eccentric characters and with a character so eccentric as himself. The interviewer says that many people may see themselves as inwardly, though not apparently, eccentric. Williams then experiences an illumination. He laughs and says that he feels relieved to know that it is alright for him to be eccentric and he says he'll go on being so with greater ease now!
There was a lovely guilelessness about Tennessee Williams. He had a sense of humor, and he enjoyed laughing at his own humor!
I felt that the characters in the plays and Williams himself were almost all persons who expressed themselves, generally speaking, in a startling, "naked" way. Or, perhaps, another popular adjective from our contemporary usage would be "transparent." So, the frankness and honesty of Williams and the characters who, by his own admission, represent his own inner selves, are salient features of the illusionistic but non-illusory Truth Williams brings to life on the stage.
This film is an excellent study of Tennessee Williams as a person and an artist (who happens to reflect the phenomenon of Southern culture at a particular point in its transition). As an opportunity to listen to Williams read from his works, the film is a moving experience. There is the added advantage of being able to view scenes featuring some of the 20th century's most outstanding actors. I place a high value on this study of Williams and his work.
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Description of Tennessee Williams' South
The brutes and the belles. The gadflies and the good ol' boys. The taboos and the profound truths. They're all part of a tennessee state of mind -- a realm of places, personalities and ideas. Williams is front and center for this exploration, reading from his works, placing them in the context of his life, and serving as guide in visits to his career-shaping refuge in New Orleans and his later-day writing quarters in Key West. Also, dramatizations by distinguished actors -- including Jessica Tandy, Broadway's original Blanche DuBois, in a recreation of her A Streetcar Named Desire triumph -- give flesh-and-bone immediacy to some of the writer's famed works. In his own words. In his own places. The resilient character and memorable characters of one of our greatest writers reside in Tennessee Williams' South.Bestsellers in DVD
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